Toure’s future at City looked uncertain after his agent Dimitry Seluk suggested the 31-year-old felt he had been treated disrespectfully by the club.

A poor World Cup with the Ivory Coast and the death of his younger brother Ibrahim to cancer saw further doubt cast on Toure's City future, but the former Barcelona midfielder insists he is going nowhere.

"It was not a case of leaving the club. It was difficult because my situation was quite difficult," he told the club's official website.

"For me I was always quiet and my decision, if you want to say it like that, is that I will stay at Manchester City for as long as possible."

Toure, who scored 24 goals and contributed 12 assists from 49 appearances for City last season, hopes the club reinforce the squad in the coming weeks in order to challenge on multiple fronts.

"I hope a couple of players sign in because we need to try to build a massive club because if we want to be the best we need to win every trophy possible," he added.

"We are looking for the Champions League - that is an important title this year and the Premier League is going to be a battle as well between Chelsea, United, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool too.

"I think it's going to be very open. We know we are the team to beat but we have the confidence and we have the fantastic players coming and I hope this year's going to be the same."

Watch Liverpool take on Manchester City in the International Champions Cup on Thursday morning - kick off is just after midnight, live on Sky Sports 1.

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t's wrong to be making a joke out of Bender's name at the expense of gay people. It's the kind of childish, uncivilised thing that Football365 would deride and ridicule if it was another media outlet saying. Why is there a need for jokes like this? Does it make your writers feel like men? F365 might suggest that I 'lighten up', but it is genuinely traumatic for people who have been oppressed all their lives to be the butt of jokes, and to be told...

ou can't blame De Gea for wanting to leave, he has enough to do in front of goal as it is as well as taking on the role of Man Utd's version of Derek Acorah in trying to contact and organise a defence that isn't there.